The Bone Wars are infamous. Between the 1870s to the 1890s, two paleontologists, Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope, had a rivalry that eventually ruined them but also made dinosaurs mainstream. source

These two hunted for fossils in the Wild West of the United States, with the help of the new railroads and the burgeoning scientific community in America. They also had to deal with politics, tensions between the Sioux and other tribes, and of course each other. source

Before the Bone Wars, dinosaurs were not that popular. Only 9 species of dinosaurs had been named, and mostly isolated teeth and skeletal fragments had been found. But after Marsh and Cope, and their rush to name new species, even going so far as to bribe, steal, and destroy bones to prevent each other from “winning,” (there are rumors they spied on each other and one rumor that Marsh stole a railway car of bones, though there’s no evidence for that one), they named 144 species (only 32 are still considered valid). source

Marsh and Cope are often depicted in different ways. Marsh was a loner, very suspicious of people, and worked slowly and methodically. He was bald with a large beard. Cope was passionate and eccentric, quick to describe fossils, and liked women but was also devoted to his family. Cope had a full head of hair and a mustache. But both of them had money and were very driven. Marsh got money from his Uncle George Peabody, who owned a large mercantile company, and was a philanthropist and bachelor, with an interest in education. Cope got money from his father, though he had an allowance for most of his life, so is sometimes depicted as the “poor one” in the Bone Wars. source

There was one more paleontologist who was part of the Bone Wars, and he’s often not mentioned: Joseph Leidy. Leidy was the first vertebrate paleontologist in the U.S., and older than both Marsh and Cope. He’d found evidence of horses, lions, rhinos, and other large mammals in the West, and in 1856 he discovered dinosaurs in America. He formally described Hadrosaurus foulkii in 1858. source

However, unlike Marsh and Cope, Leidy didn’t have money to pursue fossil hunting, and he didn’t like getting entangled in the rivalry. Eventually he quit paleontology and people kind of forgot about him. (Cope learned a lot from Leidy, but still called him “Poor Old Leidy.”) source

Marsh and Cope’s rivalry ruined them both, but was also great for paleontology source

Before the Bone Wars, there were only 9 named species of dinosaurs source

Cope and Marsh found more than 25,000 new fossils and named 144 new dinosaurs (Cope named 64, Marsh named 80), 9 of Cope’s are still valid, 23 of Marsh’s are valid source

Not all of them are still valid, but they still made valuable contributions (and Marsh also argued that birds descended from dinosaurs) source

Cope published fast and described 1,115 of the 3,200 species of vertebrate fossils known in North America in 1900 source

The dinosaur of the day: Hesperornis

Mesozoic avialan that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now Kansas, US as well as Canada and Russia

Penguin-like

Basically a large bird

About 5.9 ft (1.8 m) long

Did not have wings

Had strong hind limbs, used to swim

Toes were lobed, not webbed (kind of flattened, good for swimming)

Did not fly, but great at diving and swimming

Feet probably came out to its sides near the tail, which means their legs couldn’t go under the body to stand, and they probably pushed themselves on their bellies on land, like seals

Probably were good at foot-propelling to dive, but not great walking on land

Probably only on land for breeding and laying eggs

Hesperornis is similar to Gavia immer (the common loon, an extant animal) and probably moved similarly on land and in water

Had a flattened tail, which may have helped it change direction and go deeper or back towards the surface when under water

Had a long neck

Had teeth and a beak

Beak was good for catching fish

Probably used the beak to hold on to prey

Teeth were in the entire lower jaw and the back of the upper jaw

Their palate (roof of the mouth) had small pits that could lock the lower teeth into place when the jaws were closed

In 1952, Joseph Gregory found that Hesperornis teeth were not in sockets like dinosaurs, but had a longitudinal groove that ran down the beak, similar to mosasaurs

Similarities in mosasaur lower jaws may show Hesperornis could swallow large, slippery prey

Probably ate fish

Lived in subtropical to tropical waters, in a marine habitat. However, some of the younger species may have lived in freshwater deposits, so they may have moved, at least to some extent, away from salt water

In 2016, David Burnham, Bruce Rothschild, and others studied a leg bone that was found in South Dakota the 1960s and found that the Hesperornis bone had bite marks from a plesiosaur (they compared tooth marks of a juvenile plesiosaur and it matched the bite marks to within a mm). There were signs of infection (based on the roughness of the bone), so Hesperornis probably survived the attack

Burnham and Rothschild found that the plesiosaur came from the side of Hesperornis, based on the orientation of the bite, and also found it probably fit the whole leg in its mouth

Shows plesiosaurs may have been opportunistic predators, instead of always going after small prey

Hesperornis fossils have been found from Arkansas to the Arctic, which is around where the Western Interior Seaway was. That means Hesperornis may have lived in cool and warm temperatures in the Arctic, or it may have migrated

In 2014, Laura Wilson and Karen Chin looked at the internal bone structure of Hesperornis fossils and of modern day penguins (including gentoo penguins, which do not migrate for winter, and Adélie and chinstrap penguins which do migrate)

They looked for lines of arrested growth (LAGs) that would have slowed or stopped to respond to stressful events such as Arctic winters or migrations

They didn’t find any LAGs in Hesperornis, but saw that Hesperornis grew to adult sized quickly

Modern penguins didn’t have any signs of Arctic winters or migration stress either

The penguins grow in about a year, so that’s why there are no LAGs (they grow too fast)

With Hesperornis, there are several possible reasons for no LAGs: they were adult sized quickly so the stresses associated with migrating or overwintering did not appear in ther bone microstructure, their bones may not be easily molded and therefore these patterns were not recorded, or the Arctic climate were not that bad (though it could get below freezing, it was warmer than it is today)

The gentoo penguins grow even faster than the other penguins and Hesperornis, possibly because they need to get to adult-sized before the winter comes (since they don’t migrate)

Wilson and Chin said penguins need to be studied more, which may help answer more questions about Hesperornis

Type species is Hesperornis regalis

Name means “regal western bird”

Discovered by O.C. Marsh in 1871, during his second expedition out west in Kansas with 10 students. He thought it was a diving species (didn’t find a head)

In 1872 Marsh went back to Kansas with 4 students. One of them, Thomas Russell found a nearly complete skeleton, with part of the head (with teeth)

This and Benjamin Mudge’s discovery of Ichthyornis led to Marsh writing in an 1873 paper, “the fortunate discovery of these interesting fossils does much to break down the old distinction between birds and reptiles”

Hesperornis was part of the pre-Bone Wars. Some Hesperornis fossils were accidentally sent to Cope, and Marsh accused Cope of stealing them

Dozens of Hesperornis regalis specimens have been found

Marsh published an illustrated monograph of Hesperornis in 1897, based on many specimens

Nine species

Some of the species are only known from a single bone or a few bones, but they’re considered different species because they were found in different strate or different locations

Marsh named Hesperornis crassipes in 1876 (originally named it Lestornis crassipes, based on an incomplete skelton with teeth and parts of the skull). Hesperornis crassipes was larger than Hesperornis regalis, had five ribs (Hesperornis regalis had four), and had slightly different looking bones in the breastbone and lower leg

Marsh named another species Hesperornis gracilis

Another species, Hesperornis altus, was found in Montana in the Judith River Formation (found a partial lower leg). Marsh originally classified it as Coniornis because he thought Hesperornis only lived in Kansas. But others disagreed, and now refer to it as Hesperornis altus

In 1915 Shufeldt named another species, based on one dorsal vertebra and it being smaller than Hesperornis altus

Nessov and Yarkov found another Hesperornis in Russia near Volgograd in 1993 (more specimens have been referred to it). It’s named Hersperornis rossicus and it’s a different size

Martin and Lim named four more new species in 2002 based on fossils that had not yet been studied. Includes Hesperornis mengeli and Hesperornis macdonaldi (small ones), Hesperornis bairdi and Hesperornis chowi. These are from South Dakota and Alberta, Canada

Can see Hesperornis in an exhibition dedicated to Marsh coming to the Yale Science Building, to honor him as an early, important Yale scientist

Can see Hesperornis in ARK: Survival Evolved

Fun Fact:
Cope also named Dimetrodon, though Dimetrodon is not a dinosaur.

Episode 233 is all about Chungkingosaurus, one of the smallest known stegosaurs.

We also interview Andrew McDonald, curator and an educator at the Western Science Center in Hemet, California. His research focuses on the evolution of dinosaurs in North America during the Cretaceous, and he regular does field work in New Mexico. Since becoming curator, he’s already named two new dinosaurs: Dynamoterror and Invictarx.

Big thanks to all our patrons! Your support means so much to us and keeps us going! If you’re a dinosaur enthusiast, join our growing community on Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/iknowdino.

Probably looked similar to Tuojiangosaurus (found in the same formation), though smaller, with a high, narrow skull

Probably had two rows of plates and spikes on its back, possibly arranged in pairs

A model of Chunkingosaurus at the Chongqing Municipal museum has 14 pairs of plates, 2 pairs of tail spikes, and the plates in the middle look like thick spikes (similar to Tuojiangosaurus)

Only one specimen found with a thagomizer (tail spikes), and there were two pairs and they were vertical and stout. May have had a third pair, but it was lost during excavation

Fossils found in 1977

Described in 1983 by Dong Zhiming and others

Type species is Chungkingosaurus jiangbeiensis

Name means “Chungking lizard”

Named for where the fossils were found, in the Jiangbei district of Chungking municipality

Four specimens have been found. Zhiming and others described all four, but named the three additional specimens as specimen, 1, 2, and 3, because there are distinctions between the three, but the specimens are too fragmentary in nature

In 2014, Roman Ulanksy named two of the species as new species, Chunkingosaurus giganticus and Chunkingosaurus magnus. But later Peter Galton and Kenneth Carpenter said they were nomina dubia, and referred them both to Chungkingosaurus jiangbeiensis

Gregory Paul suggested in 2010 that the third specimen was a juvenile of Tuojiangosaurus

Part of Huayangosauridae, a group of basal stegosaurs

May have been prey for theropods such as Yangchuanosaurus

Other dinosaurs that lived in the same time and place included Tuojiangosaurus, and sauropods like Mamenchisaurus

Fun Fact:
A typical theropod is about 3 times as long as it is tall when in a walking/running posture.

A new baby oviraptorid, Gobiraptor minutus, from Cretaceous Mongolia that may have eaten bivalves source

The first stegosaur named in Mongolia, Mongolostegus exspectabilis, may be the most recent stegosaur found to date source

A new article in Nature shows that two-thirds of 3D scan data is not shared online, largely so authors can exclusively use it for future work source

The Montana House of Representatives passed the bill that says fossils are part of a property’s surface estate, not the mineral estate source

The National Showcaves Centre for Wales sold a 15ft tall 30 ft long Allosaurus sculpture to make space for new sculptures source

The dinosaur of the day: Dromaeosaurus

Theropod that lived in the Late Cretaceous in what is now the western U.S. and Alberta, Canada

Not many fossils found

Holotype includes a partial skull (missing most of the top of the snout), and some foot bones

Discovery of other dromaeosaurids have helped fill in the gaps about Dromaeosaurus (Dakotaraptor, Utahraptor, other raptors, etc.)

About 6.6 ft (2 m) long and weighed about 33 lb (15 kg)

Had a robust skull, and sharp teeth

Phil Currie published a study of Dromaeosaurus in 1994 and said the “braincase bones are not pneumatized” (heavy)

Probably had a good sense of smell

Had robust teeth, that had a lot of wear and tear (probably used to crush and tear, or “puncture and pull”, not slice flesh)

Therrien and others in 2005 said Dromaeosaurus’ bite was almost three times more powerful than Velociraptor and may have used its jaws more than its sickle claw

May have gone after large prey, and may have eaten bone (similar feeding strategy to tyrannosaurids)

Had a sickle claw on each foot

Type species is Dromaeosaurus albertensis

Described in 1922 by William Diller Matthew and Barnum Brown

Name means “swift running lizard”

Species name refers to Alberta

Fossils found in 1914 on an American Museum of Natural History expedition at Red Deer River (area now part of Dinosaur Provincial Park)

Seven other species were named, mostly based on fragments. Some have been reclassified as other genera (Troodon, Velociraptor), and the rest are considered nomina dubia.

Matthew and Brown put Dromaeosaurus in its own subfamily Dromaeosaurinae, under Deinodontidae, but in 1969 John Ostrom said it was similar to Velociraptor and Deinonychus, and assigned them to Dromaeosauridae (many more dinosaurs found, so there are lots of subfamilies within Dromaeosauridae, including Dromaeosaurinae)

Dromaeosaurs were small to medium sized feathered carnivorous theropods that lived in the Cretaceous

They’re often known as raptors (one of the most famous ones is Velociraptor)

Found all over the world, on six continents, and possibly some teeth in Australia (so maybe all seven continents)

Closely related to birds

Bob Bakker and John Ostrom used droameosaurs (Deinonychus) to show dinosaurs were fast and smart, and related to modern birds

Generally they had large skulls, serrated teeth, good binocular vision, large hands, long tails, and sickle claws on their feet (kept this toe off the ground when walking), and probably all were feathered

Can see a cast at the Royal Tyrrell Museum’s Field Station (pack of Dromaeosaurus attacking a Lambeosaurus)

Fun Fact:
Mongolostegus/Wuerhosaurus may be the most recent stegosaur, but there have been more recent tracks found in Australia, so that might be a good place to find a more recent stegosaur.

Can see Megaraptor in the game Warpath: Jurassic Park (made before the claw was known to be from the hand, so it’s displayed as a large dromaeosaur, and its codename is M-Raptor or Raptor)

Fun Fact:
According to the latest model The initial wave created by the Chicxulub impactor and it’s 1.5km crest. The tube created under the wave would have been ~1/2km (~1800ft) in diameter. That’s large enough to fit even the largest supertanker ever made.

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by Indiana University Press. Their Life of the Past series is lavishly illustrated and meticulously documented to showcase the latest findings and most compelling interpretations in the ever-changing field of paleontology. Find their books at iupress.indiana.edu

Best Video (animated): College Humor Jurassic Park with other prehistoric creatures

2nd best Video (animated): Jurassic Park in heels

Best story about dinosaurs bringing people together: A four-year-old received over 100 dinosaur toys after his house burned down

The dinosaur of the day: Thecodontosaurus

Sauropodomorph that lived in the Triassic in what is now England

Small, bipedal

About 3.9 ft (1.2 m) long, weighed about 24 lb (11 kg)

Largest ones estimated to be 8.2 ft (2.5 m) long

Had a short neck and large skull, with large eyes

Front limbs were shorter than hindlimbs

Hands were long and narrow, and had a large claw on each

Had five digits on its hands and feet

Tail was longer than the rest of the body

Had powerful back legs, could reach low hanging tree branches

Maybe could have swam? Used its tail as a rudder and strong limbs for swimming

Lived on a tropical island

Herbivorous

Had serrated, leaf-shaped teeth

Sharp teeth could tear up leaves

Originally thought to be carnivorous

Name means “socket-tooth lizard”

Found in 1834 at the Durdham Down quarry

Originally described and named in 1836

One of the first dinosaurs discovered (fourth or fifth named dinosaur, though Dinosauria as a concept didn’t exist until 1842)

Thecodontosaurus was at first thought to be a weird reptile that was similar to both lizards and crocodiles

Quarry workers found “saurian animals” remains in Bristol’s limestone quarries. They took some bones to the Bristol Institution for the Advancement of Science, Literature and Arts, so Samuel Stutchbury could see them. He was away, so his colleague Henry Riley took a look. When Stutchbury came back, he asked for more specimens. David Williams, a country parson and geologist, was aso excited. So there was a race between Williams and Stutchbury and Riley to describe the bones.

Stutchbury and Williams didn’t trust each other (Williams thought Stutchbury was selfish in trying to get all the fossils to the Bristol Institution, and Stutchbury thought Williams was trying to poach fossils). They both worked on descriptions of the dinosaur. However, Williams didn’t have as many fossil material as Riley and Stutchbury so he didn’t try to turn his report in 1835 into a legitimate description of the animal. Riley and Stutchbury named Thecodontosaurus and gave a short description in a talk in 1836 then finished their paper in 1838 and published in 1840

Name refers to the roots of the teeth not being fused with the jaw bone but instead in separate tooth sockets (like modern lizards)

Originally Riley and Stutchbury though it was a member of Squamata (lizards and snakes). Owen did not consider it to be a dinosaur (assigned it to Thecodontia in 1865). Then in 1870 Thomas Huxley found it was a dinosaur, though thought it was a Scelidosauridae. Modern analysis is still not conclusive (sometimes seen as a basal sauropodomorph, or may have come before the prosauropod-sauropod split)

Only one valid species, the type species Thecodontosaurus antiquus (though many other species have been named)

Species named in 1843 by John Morris, in his catalogue of British fossils

Species name means “ancient” in Latin

Holotype consists of a lower jaw

Holotype was destroyed in WWII in November 1940 during the Bristol Blitz

Some bones survived (184 are now part of the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, and more fossils were later found near Bristol at Tytherington)

About 245 fragmentary specimens are currently known

Peter Dalton assigned another lower jaw as the neotype in 1985

Lots of other misassigned species, some now considered to be other genera, some are dubious

Riley and Stutchbury also found some carnivore teeth that they named Paleosaurus cylindrodon and Paleosaurus platydon. In the late 1800s, there was a theory that they were from carnivorous prosauropods, with similar bodies to Thecodontosaurus but with teeth that could slice. Arthur Smith Woodward named Thecodontosaurus platydon in 1890 based on this, and Friedrich von Huene named Thecodontosaurus cylindrodon in 1908, but now they’re both not considered valid

Once, Thecodontosaurus fossils were mistakenly described as a different genus. In 1891, Harry Govier Seeley named Agrosaurus macgillivrayi. He thought the fossils found in 1844 that came from the northeast coast of Australia. But it was foun in 1999 that Riley and Stutchbury probably sent those bones to the British Museum of Natural History and were mislabeled. (In 1906, Friedrich von Huene said they were similar to Thecodontosaurus and named the species Thecodontosaurus macgillivrayi. Now it’s considered a junior synonym of Thecodontosaurus antiquus.

Part of the Bristol Dinosaur Project, which for ~4 years thousands of volunteers helped gather and preserve its fossils (lots of lab, research, and outreach work)

Fun Fact:
From episode 180: Stegosaur plates form from the same osteoderms that make up the armor on ankylosaurs

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. You can see some amazing examples and works in progress on Instagram @trxdinosaurs

And by Indiana University Press. Their Life of the Past series is lavishly illustrated and meticulously documented to showcase the latest findings and most compelling interpretations in the ever-changing field of paleontology. Find their books at iupress.indiana.edu

Stegosaurid that lived in the Early Cretaceous in what is now China and Mongolia

One of the last stegosaurs (most stegosaurs were from the Jurassic period)

Found in Xinjiang, in western China, the Tugulu Group

Fossils found in three localities

Described in 1973 by Dong Zhiming

Type species is Wuerhosaurus homheni

Name means “Wuerho lizard”

Name Wuerhosaurus refers to the city of Wuerho

Holotype consists of a mostly complete pelvis, vertebrae, humerus and phalanx, and two dermal plates; paratype includes some tail vertebrae

In 1988 a smaller stegosaur was found in Inner Mongolia, Ejinhoro Formation, and described in 1993 by Dong

Named Wuerhosaurus ordosensis

Holotype of second species includes a nearly complete torso, vertebrae, and a complete sacrum with a right ilium

Also a dorsal vertebra and dermal plate were referred to the species when it was named

Another species, Wuerhosaurus mongoliensis was described in 2014 by Ulansky, based on vertebrae and pelvic material, but that’s now considered to be a nomen nudum

Wuerhosaurus homheni probably had a broad body, broad belly

Estimated to be 23 ft (7 m) long and weigh 4 tonnes

Dorsal plates were initially thought to be either rounder or flatter than dorsal plates of other stegosaurids, but later Maidment said it only looked that way because they were broken, and how they actually looked is unknown

Had tall nerual spines on the base of the tail

Wuerhosaurus ordosensis also had a broad pelvis, but also shorter neural spines and a long neck

Estimated to be 16 ft (5 m) long and weigh 1.2 tonnes

Herbivorous, and probably ate low-growing vegetation

Probably kept its head low to the ground

Probably had a thagomizer at the end of the tail (spikes)

One spike was found, but Dong thought it was on the shoulder

Had wide hips, may have had a larger digestive area

Some debate over where Wuerhosaurus sits in the phylogenetic tree, however Maidment in 2017 said Wuerhosaurus was most closely related to Stegosaurus

In 2008 Susannah Maidment and others suggested Wuerhosaurus was a junior synonym of Stegosaurus, and that Wuerhosaurus homheni should be Stegosaurus homheni (because the holotype was similar to Stegosaurus) and Wuerhosaurus ordosensis was dubious (because the holotype could not be found and the description didn’t mention any valid diagnostic traits). However, Carpenter disagreed with this in 2010, and suggested Wuerhosaurus had enough distinct features and was separate from Stegosaurus

If Wuerhosaurus and Stegosaurus were synonymous, that would mean Stegosaurus lived from the Late Jurassic to the Early Cretaceous

Fun Fact:
Genus names have to be unique for every animal, but they can be the same as a plant name. So we can never name another animal Tyrannosaurus, but someone could name a flower Tyrannosaurus.

Sponsors:

This episode is brought to you in part by TRX Dinosaurs, which makes beautiful and realistic dinosaur sculptures, puppets, and animatronics. Get a baby T. rex sculpture or other rewards by joining their Kickstarter! kck.st/2FRwB9p

And by Indiana University Press. Their Life of the Past series is lavishly illustrated and meticulously documented to showcase the latest findings and most compelling interpretations in the ever-changing field of paleontology. Find their books at iupress.indiana.edu

First diplodocoid ever found in East Asia. When combining bones from several individuals, nearly the entire skeleton is known (in white). Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05128-1 on 7/31/2018

Here’s what came out this week in dinosaur news:

The first ever diplodcoid from East Asia was discovered, Lingwulong shenqi, and it’s also incredibly old for an advanced sauropod source

The new Deep Time exhibit coming to the Smithsonian in 2019 will feature a T. rex biting the frill of a Triceratopssource

Dickinson Dinosaur Museum in North Dakota has a new claws exhibit to show the correlation between dinosaurs and modern birds source

The Dinosaur Room in Rio’s National Museum recently reopened after a renovation source

In the month of August, if you donate to certain Goodwills, you can get free kids tickets to Dinosaur World source

A 16-year-old in the UK built a replica Allosaurus from scrap metal source

In Las Vegas a man setup projectors outside his daughter’s window to simulate dinosaurs looking at her source

A real estate agent made a listing go viral using an inflatable T. rex costume source